More than 1,600 boat migrants from sub-Saharan Africa reached Europe by way of Spain’s Canary Islands over the weekend, with a record-breaking 321 migrants arriving on a single vessel on Saturday.
The islands off the north-west of Africa, popular with expatriates and tourists from Britain and Germany, have seen around 23,500 migrants land on their shores since January. Much of the influx has been concentrated in recent months, with 8,561 arriving in the first two weeks of October. Arrivals are currently up around 90 percent on last year overall.
Once they reach Spanish soil and claim asylum, boat migrants are often able to move on to Continental Europe, where they have mostly unfettered access to the European Union’s borderless Schengen travel area. There is also little to stop them from making a second voyage to the United Kingdom, as the British authorities do not as a matter of policy ever turn back boat migrants at sea, and often actually help them to complete their journeys.
Migrants have also been reaching Europe by taking boats directly to the Spanish mainland, or by breaking through the border barriers around the Spanish exclaves of Ceuta and Melilla, bordering Morocco. Further east, even more migrants have been reaching Europe via Italy, and Greece, bordering Turkey, has also seen an increase in border crossings on land and at sea.
